Blogs and Commentary

MCLA Division II Notebook

North Dakota State has always been a tough position. It's stuck
in the same division as St. Thomas and St. John's — two of
the stalwarts in Division II — and without any kind of youth
or prep lacrosse presence in the state, it relies on players
hopping the border from Minnesota. In some ways, it's a minor
miracle that the Bison are even talked about.

But here they are at 5-2, ranked nationally and looking pretty
good to once again qualify for the MCLA tournament. And they're
doing it without the services of their best player — and one
of the top guns in the division — Peter Flock. Flock has a
leg injury, which has hampered him for the last couple of weeks,
and may keep him sidelined until the postseason rolls around. His
absence was certainly felt in the Bison's 12-4 loss to No. 18 Grand
Valley State on Sunday.

With Flock's production out of the lineup, NDSU head coach Zach
Bosh is trying to get his team to buy into the concept of a
nameless, faceless group that churns out wins.

"It is more or less a group effort," Bosh said. "We're trying to
let them know that one person isn't responsible for making up what
[Flock] does. We're trying to play more as a team. The way we're
looking at it, if we can start playing better as a team, and then
we get Peter back at the end of the year, it's like adding an
All-American player at a key time."

Bosh has been pleased with the play of grad student Andy Madsen,
who is running near 70 percent at the faceoff X this spring, but
other than that, it's been underclassmen fueling the Bison's
success. It's a familiar theme.

"It's nice to be young, but it would be better to have more
experience," conceded Bosh. "We only have two seniors contributing
minutes this year. It's the same issue we've had for the last three
years."

Kyle Sturgeon is one of the more experienced players on the team
despite being a junior, and Bosh has labeled him the MVP to this
point in the season. Sturgeon had nine goals and eight assists
heading into this past weekend's action.

"He's been consistent and he understands the game well," said
Bosh of Sturgeon, an Eagen, Minn., product. "He's always been a
good player, but he doesn't seem to get any recognition because
Peter is playing on the team, as well. He's the second attackman on
the team. That's the way it's been. He's always been a solid
contributor."

As much as Bosh likes his team and what the individual players
bring to the table, he knows there are plenty of things to work on,
and some of them were exposed against GVSU.

"We just want to put together four solid quarters," Bosh said.
"That was our problem against Western Oregon. We were up 9-5 with
two or three minutes left in the game and we gave up two goals to
make it 9-7. We probably had 35 turnovers. Not beating ourselves is
our biggest problem. It's the little things. A lot of our guys have
a huge issue with wanting to be the guy to make the assist. None of
them are selfish, but they want to be part of the scoring play
instead of making the play in front of them. That's kind of our
issue."

There are only two games of note left on NDSU's schedule, and
you can probably guess who they are. The Bison travel to No. 3 St.
John's this Thursday and then host top-ranked St. Thomas on April
20 (conference lightweights Carleton and St. Olaf are
interspersed). It'll be a struggle down the stretch, but then
again, if things came easy for North Dakota State it would feel
kind of odd.

- There were plenty of sighs of relief in the SELC when the
score of the GVSU-NDSU game came across the wire. The entire
legitimacy of the SELC is currently being propped up by the
reputation of the Lakers, and if GVSU tanked out the rest of the
season, it'd be taking an entire conference with it.

No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast, No. 9 Palm Beach Atlantic and No. 5
Liberty are fine teams, and would probably put forth a good showing
if they were put on a national stage, but without a win over Grand
Valley State, they wouldn't have the complementary victories to
merit much of a look from the committee. And they certainly
wouldn't be worthy of the Top 12 rankings they currently possess.
Seriously, go back and look at their schedules and see what they'd
be without GVSU.

What's bizarre about the weekly rankings — and just one of
the many reasons that the committee will undoubtedly ignore the
polls during the selection process — is FGCU, PBA and Liberty
are in the Top 12 thanks to GVSU, but yet the Lakers are No. 18.
Anyone who has been following the MCLA knows that Grand Valley is a
Top 10 team, regardless of the record, and the fact that the SELC
is dining out on the Lakers makes GVSU's current station even more
absurd.

Those three SELC teams beat GVSU fair and square, and they
should certainly be recognized for having done so, both by the
committee and the pollsters. But both of those entities should
remember how the Lakers earned the reputation that the SELC is now
working off of. It was by traveling and taking on all comers, no
matter which division, and winning a whole lot more than they lost.
To transitively hand FGCU, PBA and Liberty legitimacy because of
the groundwork laid by GVSU over the last five years just because
they happen to catch the Lakers early in the season is
ill-conceived.

The pollsters may not be catching onto this fact, but I'm
guessing the committee will when it makes its selections and
seedings.

- There might be a couple of SELC teams that still need to prove
themselves, but Elon is not one of them. The No. 11 Phoenix made
the trip to Boston — a journey that will certainly make the
committee smile — and dumped both No. 13 Briarcliffe (11-4)
and No. 21 Stonehille (11-7), essentially locking up a tourney bid
regardless of whether they win the conference AQ or not. Sean
Augustine had four goals and an assist over the weekend for Elon,
which will now prepare itself to tangle with No. 5 Liberty on
Friday night.

- St. Thomas' 9-6 victory over No. 3 St. John's is the nail in
the coffin for me in regards to the plausibility of someone
actually challenging the Tommies in Greenville. We can all cling to
the "Any given Saturday" maxim in desperate hope that UST won't
further cement its dynasty, but even if they won't openly express
it, the rest of D-II knows that it's just a fantasy. Let me be the
first to congratulate St. Thomas...Elon's success may help Sam
Houston State's case for inclusion at nationals, especially with
the LSA not having an AQ this spring...No. 15 Grove City knocked
off No. 6 Dayton for the first time in program history. It's going
to be tough to keep the Wolverines out of the tourney at this
point.